Is "Goodnight Bush," the recently published parody of the best-selling children's classic "Goodnight Moon," supposed to be laugh-out-loud funny or heaving-sigh sad?

The authors - San Franciscan Erich Origen and Los Angeles resident Gan Golan - prefer the term "traumedy." As in, they're trying to wrap eight traumatic years of the nation's history in a few good laughs. It's full of lines like "And a quiet Dick Cheney whispering 'hush.' " The accompanying image: The vice president, wearing bunny slippers, with a shotgun across his lap.

Riffing off the familiar, somnolent rhythms and dreamy illustrations of Margaret Wise Brown's children's classic, "Goodnight Bush" stands to become a popular American political parody - it was No. 507 Tuesday on Amazon.com's overall chart, and No. 2 among parodies just a week after its release. The book is a visual critique of the Bush administration, from the culture wars to the Iraq War, with the only constant being George W. Bush, clad in a "Mission Accomplished"-era flight suit, curled up on his bed.

The clock on his nightstand is permanently set at 9:11. On the mantle is the scale of justice, which at the book's beginning is balanced between church and state. By the end, the scale leans entirely toward the church; the Capitol has a cross atop its dome. Burning in the fireplace is a ballot box marked "Ohio 2004."

Some of the details aren't subtle, but one has to scour every corner of Origen and Golan's parody, lest they be passed over for a comb, a mouse or a bowl full of mush. Indeed, while a mouse scurried around in the original, in "Goodnight Bush," a mouse-sized Osama bin Laden scampers about, still on the loose.

The meaning of the words, however, are unequivocal.

Goodnight Constitution. And goodnight evolution.

"Goodnight Bush" is one of several recent political humor books that could be described as Good Riddance Lit. Each - some with absurdist humor, others in a more somber tone - give the Bush administration and its supporters one last kick on the way out the door. Whereas ex-Bush press secretary Scott McClellan's new best-seller, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," is a straight-faced tell-all, many Good Riddance tomes are a satirical cocktail of humor, pathos and attitude.

They include: Matt Taibbi's "The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire"; "Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq" by Victor Navasky and Christopher Cerf; and "Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values" - a collection of TV commentaries from MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

Then there's the minimalist approach of Dan Blue's "W's Wise Words to the World." Its pages are blank - as in wisdom-free.

So what's the point of these critiques now, seven months before Bush and Cheney leave Washington? For one, said Golan, it's cathartic to celebrate the onrushing end of the Bush administration. It's the same feeling that fills the Web with "Backward Bush" clocks (which count down the time to the 10th of a second until Bush leaves office) and T-shirts saying nothing other than "1.20.09" (his last day in the White House).

And then there's an urgency to set the record straight, he said.

'Big lie dies here'

"There's a sense that these guys will ride off into the sunset with their personal mythologies intact. We want to set the historical account straight. The big lie dies here," said Golan, 34, an artist, writer and activist.

Or, as Bruce Kluger, co-author of the satirical "Young Dick Cheney: Great American" put it: "It's a survival story. It's self-congratulatory in a way. We've survived. But we can't forget."

Origen and Golan, who used to work together in a San Francisco dot-com a decade ago, began riffing on the "Goodnight Bush" idea in late 2006. Origen had the original flash of the idea, which they agreed was funny on a quick-laugh level. But as they pursued the project, and began to catalog everything they wanted to include in the book, the tone evolved.

"We wanted it to be the definitive requiem for everything they've done," said Origen, a Web writer-producer.

When he was a film student at the University of Southern California, Origen was told that if he wanted to write for television, he had to choose between drama or comedy. Doesn't that seem artificial, he wondered, especially when his sensibility veered toward both.

So he was somewhat gratified when the early reaction to the book "was people saying, 'I laughed out loud, and then I sighed,' " he said.

Goodnight old growth trees. Goodnight detainees.

In parodying the hypnotic pacing of the book, the authors say they've found a perfect vehicle to skewer the administration. As the authors write in their afterword, " 'Goodnight Moon' reassured us that familiar things were intact, that everything was as it should be. If we could just lie back and obey the old lady's counsel, all would be well. The bedtime stories we got from the Bush administration had the same seductive aura of reassurance, the same promise of security."

In a similar way, Kluger and "Young Dick Cheney" co-writer David Slavin sought to re-create the simple style of the popular early tween-lit series Junie B. Jones. His afterword facetiously lists other kid-lit titles in the same genre, such as "Encyclopedia Brownie and the Case of the Missing Levee" and "A is for Abu Ghraib: My First Alphabet Book."

Reluctant publications

But Kluger, who produces regular satirical pieces with Slavin for National Public Radio and the Los Angeles Times, said that several major publications have shied away from writing about his new book, "because they say, 'I'm not doing something about this unless there's a similar one making fun of Democrats.' "

As Americans prepare to choose a new president in November, Origen said he hoped "Goodnight Bush" would also be a cautionary tale. "We hope there's a Democrat as the next president," Origen said.

But if Republican John McCain were to win in November, Origen jokes that he's already thought of the sequel: "Goodnight Bush, Again."

Recent 'Good Riddance Lit' books

-- "Goodnight Bush" by Erich Origen and Gan Golan

-- "Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq" by Victor Navasky and Christopher Cerf

-- "The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire" by Matt Taibbi

-- "Young Dick Cheney: Great American" by Bruce Kluger and David Slavin

-- "Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values" by Keith Olbermann